To travel is to live.

Day Trip to Pltvice Lakes, Croatia

Part of our six-month trip included a 6-day stay in Zagreb, Croatia, which I sort of regretted after realizing that there wasn’t a ton of stuff to do there. We fell in love with Croatia after visiting the coastal city of Zadar. It was a beautiful town with hidden beaches and islands to explore near by. However, I decided to make the best of our stay in Zagreb and see if there was anywhere close by that we could do a day trip to. I found out that Rijeka was two hours away but it seemed just like any coastal city, so we decided to skip out on that trip. Then, I saw that Pltvice Lakes National Park was only a 2.5-hour ride away by bus. This park is known for its gorgeous waterfalls and crystal blue lakes. The pictures on Google looked incredible and finding out that it was a UNESCO world heritage site just sealed the deal. We we arrived at about 10 a.m. and paid 110 kuna ($22 Canadian) per person to enter the park. I read online the price varies depending on the time of year and from July 1 to the end of August it goes up to 180 kuna. However, once you get inside the park you definitely get your money’s worth. There are four hiking paths you can take A, B, C or D, they varied by the amount of time they took to complete. These paths are not challenging at all, they are all on flat land and there are boats and a bus that can take you around the park. We chose to take path B, which was supposed to take 3-4 hours to complete, since we were worried about catching the bus back to Zagreb. This path doesn’t take very long (I guarantee that you’ll be stopping all the time to take breathtaking pictures). It took us about 5-6 hours in total but in that time we managed to eat our lunch, grab a beer at the pit stop and get lost for an hour after taking the wrong path (thanks to my boyfriend). In that time we also saw most of the waterfalls in the park, which were simply amazing. The lakes in the park were the most incredible shades of blue; everywhere you looked you would see an even more beautiful waterfall. You really felt like you were in heaven. We had seen waterfalls in Switzerland but they paled in comparison. The only reason we didn’t complete the path even faster (this is also the one down fall of the park) was that the paths were very narrow and more then once we got stuck behind a tour group who would block the lane to listen to their tour guide or to tourists who would stop to take pictures (I confess, I was one of those tourists). The best time to go would probably be in April/May because it’s cheaper and there are less tourists; however, its 100% worth seeing at any point in the year. If this place isn’t on your bucket list, you should add it!